How a Silicon Valley Striver Became the Alt-Right's Tech Hero

There’s a revolution going on in online conservative media. Breitbart and Infowars are attracting audiences that are too angry for Fox News, and communities of conspiracy theorists and Internet trolls thrive on platforms like Reddit and 4Chan. Then there’s the upstart social network Gab.ai. The content on Gab tracks closely with the fixations of the populist right in the Trump era – desire for restrictive immigration policies, disdain for “political correctness,” disapproval of NFL players kneeling during the national anthem – with outright racism and bigotry mixed in. But the site’s management and its users seem particularly furious about one subject: Big Tech.

Gab was started a year ago by Andrew Torba, a 26-year old entrepreneur from Pennsylvania. Torba has ridden its success into the upper ranks of right-wing rabble-rousers. He rubs elbows with former Breitbart writer Milo Yiannopoulos, and debates best practices on website moderation with Andrew Anglin, the founder of the neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer. When Torba donned a suit for a recent appearance on Infowars, he made sure to mention he was doing so because the infamous political operative Roger Stone had chided him about his wardrobe. He posted a public welcome note to right-wing activist and filmmaker James O’Keefe when he signed up for Gab in September.

Technically, there’s nothing distinctive about Gab. It’s a lot like Reddit or Twitter, where users set up accounts, follow one another, and post videos and links. The service’s main draw is its loose policy governing what users are allowed to say. Almost anything goes, except for explicit threats, spam, illegal pornography, and posting other people’s personal information. “We believe that the only valid form of censorship is an individual’s own choice to opt-out,” the company writes in its guidelines. Users can choose to block posts with specific words, or those from specific accounts. According to Gab, 290,000 people have signed up since it started, although it doesn’t provide data on how many accounts are active. It also offers premium memberships for $6 a month.